Anniversary of Saddam's death keeps Iraqi forces on high alert

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces were on high alert Sunday around Baghdad and in the Sunni heartland north of the capital as the country marked the one-year anniversary of Saddam Hussein's execution.

In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, hundreds of people and school children visited his burial site to pay homage and lay flowers. Some gave fiery speeches while others just stood quietly by the tomb, located in a large mausoleum in the Tigris River village of Ouja -- the small hamlet just outside Tikrit where Saddam was born.

Saddam is buried next to his sons Odai and Qusai, who died in a gun battle with U.S. forces in 2003 in the northern city of Mosul.

Footage of Saddam's Dec. 30 execution, filmed on a mobile phone and showing the former Iraqi leader being taunted just before he was hanged, was leaked to the media and shown across the world. It provoked an outcry, particularly among many of Iraq's Sunni Arabs, and sparked a horrific day of violence that left 80 people dead from bombings and other attacks.

Bin Laden's new warning

Osama bin Laden warned Iraq's Sunni Arabs against joining tribal councils fighting Al Qaeda or participating in any unity government in a new Internet audiotape on Saturday. "Our duty is to foil these dangerous schemes, which try to prevent the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq, which would be a wall of resistance against American schemes to divide Iraq," he said.